More Politics- my political platform
It is time for us, as a country, to get to work.
Work sucks. That’s part of the definition, I think. Here’s what dictionary.com says (a few excerpts actually- my emphases)
1. exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.
4. employment, as in some form of industry, esp. as a means of earning one’s livelihood
We’ve been lazy as a country for a long time now. A vast portion of our income is essentially gambling winnings and artificial money created by manipulating credit/interest flows and leveraging assets against other assets. Our production and manufacturing jobs are flowing out of the country and because our money isn’t based on anything real, there’s no way to verify that our money is actually worth anything at all. The sad part is, this isn’t even the crux of our country’s problem. The problem is our unwillingness to take the steps to solve the problem.
When you break a bone, the bone has to be set to heal correctly. This HURTS. It hurts far less than spending your life crippled because you decided to not let the doctor set the bone correctly, but it hurts. Our economy is broken and it needs to be set in order to heal it. But we are collectively sissies. We are more likely to limp around on crutches, degrade to a wheelchair, and finally become bedridden than we are to endure the short period of pain now to ensure real healing and growth to come.
Enough of the analogies. Let me preface this by saying I’m not an economist. I have an above-average grasp of these things but a grasp far below that required to actually make these sweeping changes. When I’m elected, I’ll be sure to have the most brilliant minds on the subject that I can find to ensure these things are done right. Here is my cursory look into what needs to change.
First- gold (or perhaps silver or something else tangible) base for the currency. No more making money out of thin air as that only leads to continued inflation. Money needs to mean something and the monopoly money we have here is not cutting it.
Second- LOTS AND LOTS of new regulation and limitations. On the government. 12 years combined as term limits for elected federal office below VP. All federal employees’ income will be capped at 150% of the median income of their constituents. No more pensions. All federal employees will have access to public 401(k)/403(b) retirement plans that the rest of the populace uses. Same for insurance- Federal Employees (including the president) will use private insurance companies like everybody else. Being elected to office should not be a golden ticket. When I am president, it won’t be.
Third- When I am elected president, the level of political correctness will go down drastically. Our president is and always has been a human being. We call him Mr. President. There is no honorific in the title because he is one of us. Our government is of/for/by the people… he’s a person and the idea that he (or she) should be perfect is stupid. My campaign is built on the concept of honesty and I will be honest about my flaws- chief among them is my penchant for foul language and crass generalization.
Fourth- True capitalism will be reinstated. There is no such thing as “too big to fail.” This recent series of bailouts has taken money from those who are careful with their assets and used that money to prop up failing companies. In other words, money is being taken from the people smart enough to save it and given to those too careless to do so. This stops. I sincerely hope it will have been done away with before I am allowed to run for office (2016, kids) but I have little faith in our current administration to do… anything really.
Fifth- You can build schools or you can build prisons. Whichever you build will fill up. This country’s education system needs a complete overhaul and we need to realize that spending money on education is not throwing it away. From a corporate standpoint, spending money on education is ensuring future gains. If your applicant pool is full of idiots, your company cannot continue to flourish. If you outsource all of your jobs, there will be nobody with money here to buy your product. The list goes on but it should be pretty clear that money spent on a sound educational system is not money wasted but a sound long-term investment. Moreover, our education system needs something other than money- it needs common sense. Schools and teachers need to be able to cater to the students- not to some generalized test. High school graduates of today are brilliant at passing tests and horrible at almost anything else. This has to stop.
Sixth (and final for today’s post)- Laws and Bills must stand on their own. No more riders. No more attachments. If your bill cannot stand on its own merit, attaching something unrelated to get people to vote on it will be prohibited. IE- all those education bills that get passed because there are defense contracts attached to them or healthcare bills passing with oil bills as riders… none of that should be allowed. Our legal system does not need that clutter and does not benefit from it. It has to stop.
Stay tuned for more reasons I will be an awesome president and you should vote for me. Also feel free to ask questions.
January 2nd, 2010 at 7:59 am
Interesting thoughts & comments.
I know I’ve asked this before… what are you doing to get the attention of LOTS of people? Are you attending public meetings, shaking hands with everybody? “Hi. I’m Geoff Evans and I’m going to be President someday.” My village has various festivals & events and I’d bet yours does too. Attend them all. Volunteer to work at them. Join committees & civic organizations. Get out there!!!
January 2nd, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Your ma speaks wisdom, young’un…
A short while back you posted about the difference between claiming to be a writer, and actually BEING on. That difference was the actual process of doing the writing. So, Mr. President, what are ya doing about getting elected?
BTW, you and I need to make a pact. I claim to be a musician, and you claim to be a writer. I need to play music (at least regular practice and not just goofing around with the bass). You need to write regularly. So, let’s hold each other accountable.
Love,
Dadoo
January 4th, 2010 at 9:44 am
I have a couple for you:
7. The Federal Reserve. It’s kind of an insane policy to place control over the printing of our money in the hands of a conglomeration of a dozen monster banks. Did you know they printed an extra 1.2 trillion dollars and handed it to banks in addition to the government’s recent bailouts? The fed’s existence is based on the use of the letter (but not the spirit) of Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution. Getting back on the gold standard would be nice, but returning control of our money to our own fricking government would be better.
8. Election reform. One of the things that has been happening is that senators and congressmen who give big handouts to corporate powers tend to get hired by those powers immediately after they leave office and then get paid huge bucks. Not even campaign finance reform would fix this practice, and I’m not sure what would. If anyone has any ideas, speak up.
Here’s a few notes on some of yours:
5. I’m glad I got out of the school system when I did, because I am *good* at doing stuff but *bad* at passing tests. It was enough of a struggle for me in the school system that emphasizes rote memorization and ignores (for the most part) practical skill. If I were a kid in school now, I’d probably have been held back. I certainly would have held the school back financially in the era of no child left behind, because even though I know and can do a lot of shit, I fail at tests. That crap has to be changed.
6. Oregon actually did this, partly. All measures brought up for a general vote in Oregon have to stand on their own; no riders. It has worked well, and the federal government could learn a lot from us.